Spencer Bachus, dean of Alabama delegation, retiring

Alabama GOP Rep. Spencer Bachus announced on Monday that he would not seek reelection in 2014. Bachus, the dean of the state’s House delegation and a former chairman of the Financial Services Committee, was first elected in 1992.

“It has been the greatest privilege imaginable to serve as the representative of the people of Alabama in the United States House of Representatives,” he said in a statement. “It is an honor that I never dreamed could have been possible for me and the words ‘thank you’ are far from adequate. But as Ecclesiastes 3 says, to everything there is a season and I feel in my heart that now is the time for me to announce this decision and allow others to have the opportunity to serve.”

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In 2012, Bachus survived the most serious electoral threat of his career when he held off state Sen. Scott Beason in a hard-fought primary campaign. Bachus at the time was under investigation from the Office of Congressional Ethics for allegedly making a series of stock trades during the 2008 financial crisis, when, as the top Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, he was receiving confidential briefings from the Treasury Department. The congressman was later cleared of any wrongdoing.

Bachus’s conservative, Birmingham-area seat will almost certainly remain in Republican hands: Mitt Romney received 74 percent of the vote there.